John McCain

We pass these laws saying you must do this, but then there is no penalty when they do not do it.

Either do business with Iran's $250 billion a year economy, or do business with America's $13 trillion economy.

There has been a lot of frustration over the years with sanctions that have not been enforced.

Do you have any idea of why the State Department has not sanctioned anyone under this Act?

I think after Hurricane Katrina, she understands as well as anybody in the whole Congress what happens if you are not prepared.

I did comment publicly in May 2010 about a letter published by a senior officer that I believed inappropriate.

I understand your passion, but that's not, I think, frankly, in the tradition of America.

Should it have been disclosed?

In other words, in a synthetic CDO, you don't really have any ownership. You are just betting on the fortunes of that CDO, is that correct?

I mean, you did get $10 billion of the taxpayers' money.

How do you think the community banks are doing, Mr. Blankfein? I think they are doing pretty poorly.

Thank you for being here, Mr. Blankfein.

But you didn't make any direct home loan mortgages.

Explain, perhaps for the benefit of the Subcommittee and for the record, what is a synthetic CDO?

And I know you are not a charitable organization. I know why you are in business.

Maybe you could--do you think that, in the minds of a lot of Americans, that there is a real contradiction there?

What about community banks? Any involvement with them?

The rating agency would know whether they were told or not.

How does that differ from going out to Caesar's Palace to the sports book and making a wager on the outcome of an athletic event?

But Goldman is doing pretty well.

It has been alleged in the case of the Abacus----

But from the reading of these emails and the information that this Subcommittee has uncovered, there is no doubt their behavior was unethical.

Let us assume that the agency didn't know.

Well, a lot of these things are fairly complicated, Mr.

There's no doubt their behavior was unethical.